


Carry The Weight

by DistantStorm



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Feels and Smut, Grief, Intimacy, Mourning, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 16:58:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16268498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantStorm/pseuds/DistantStorm
Summary: Everyone handles grief differently. But they handle theirs the same.In which Suraya Hawthorne attempts to soothe the Commander's pain.





	Carry The Weight

Everyone handles grief differently. For some, it's sobbing and drowning in their tears. Others, it's screaming and raging until there is nothing left to feel except emptiness. For others, it’s shouldering the burdens of those around them and carrying on - because they feel someone has to. It's a dark day in the Tower. The sense of loss is crippling and palpable in the air. 

 

The Guardians are inconsolable, and rightfully so. Amanda had been there to watch  _ the _ Guardian lift his body from their ship, had caught the encrypted message that there had been a casualty. She'd been sobbing quietly on the ground beside Cayde's workstation, nestled between countless other hunters in a silent vigil, Colonel on her lap clucking forlornly when the familiar jumpsuit appeared on the platform.

 

Ikora and Zavala had stood, both stone faced in the hangar to accept and identify the body before it was swathed in white and gold and moved somewhere private.

 

Five hours later, Ikora stormed out into the Bazaar in a flurry of hellfire, and Shaxx himself forced to intervene. The whole Tower could hear her curses in a plethora of languages both known and unknown. She'd lost a member of her Fireteam. A friend. No one had the heart to judge.

 

A jump ship hurtled out of the atmosphere in the exact direction it had come from hours earlier some time after that. No others had entered or exited the Tower since the news had been received. The mood turned from sad to hostile.

 

Three more hours after that, when sun had begun to set and the stars had begun to appear against an inky sky, Suraya exited the command theatre feeling tired and worn thin. Neither of the two remaining Vanguard had remembered that they had shifts to complete - and she obviously understood, but the teams off-planet had a job to do, and enemies to combat regardless. 

 

The whole thing could have gone far worse - thankfully she'd been reading up on just about everything related to Vanguard operations and history, and had some experience working with Devrim on civilian ops. She definitely needed to read up on Vex and Hive, though. As she had left, she'd checked on the next scheduled times. The three of them very rarely had any on the docket together. As it were, only four strikes were planned for the following day, all in the EDZ. She removed them from Zavala and Cayde's respective calendars without any gripe from the coordinating team and instructed them to send the details to her tablet so she could prepare.

 

The Bazaar was strangely quiet, although there were certainly a lot of people over at the ramen shop. She passed by plenty of grieving people and a plethora of ones drinking and telling stories. A few had tried to get her to join in - mostly hunters who addressed her as ‘Poncho’ because  _ he _ had. She could only offer a sad smile and a rain check, because there was somewhere she had to be. 

 

She nods to a sullen looking Banshee, who barely tips his head at her. Otherwise, Tess and Rahool have cleared out, and Shaxx closed up slightly earlier than usual - she'd heard over the course of her walk that the Tower's bar was exceptionally packed this evening. 

 

He's standing alone. Normally, he looks proud, regal, and defiant of the fate the rest of the universe wants to bestow upon the Earth and its denizens, looking out upon all that he protects. She sees the slump of his shoulders, the lean against the ledge of the platform. The average onlooker would have missed it, but not her. 

 

She knows this man.

 

She forces herself to make her footfalls heavier, to give away her presence rather than startle him. As she expects, he straightens to his normal stance and turns to her, giving his back to his beloved City.

 

“Hawthorne.” 

 

His voice is subdued, tired. Her heart aches for him. She knows, in her heart of hearts that Cayde - wherever he is, wherever the dead go - would be incredibly flattered by his grief, because it means that Zavala cares(and oh, does Zavala care). But more than that, he would be concerned, because Zavala does not take care of himself and won't know his grief until he crumples under the weight of it.

 

“Zavala.”

 

He does not attempt to say anything more, and she's not sure if it's because he can't get the words out, or if he just doesn't want to. She takes a breath. It's not about her right now.

 

She shifts her weight from left to right foot. “I'm ordering take out,” She decides aloud. “Come on.”

 

He stares at her, bewildered. “What?”

 

“You know, where you order food and go pick it up?”

 

“I know what take away is, Hawthorne.” She hears the edge in his tone. She chooses to ignore it.

 

“Okay. C'mon then.”

 

He turns his back to her and looks up at the sky. It feels like a refusal but it isn't because he hasn't said no yet.

 

She occupies herself with ordering from a close by Greek place on her tablet - because it's comfort food and she knows he can't resist it. And also he probably hasn't eaten since this morning or yesterday, and if she gets enough it'll reheat well for a second meal.

 

Once all is said and done, she puts her hand over his on the railing. “The way I see this,” He pulls his hand away, and she's not surprised. She knows he dislikes public displays of affection, and their companionship isn't exactly common knowledge. “You have two options.”

 

He looks over at her, but she's gazing down at the city below.

 

“You can either have your Ghost transmat whatever you need for the night to my place, or we can go to yours.” She tilts her head slightly to regard him. “Either way, I have to go get this food, and you're going to eat it with me.”

 

“I am?”

 

She leans back to get a fuller view of the Traveler. “I mean, I ordered Greek. It's delicious and I'll eat it by myself if I have to.”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

She smiles tentatively, still not looking at him. “If you wanted to be alone right now, you would have said so by now.” She turns her gaze on him. Indulgently, she asks, “Would you like to be alone?”

 

His posture dips significantly. She sighs. 

 

“Didn't think so.” She puts her hand back on his, and when he moves to pull away, she grips it tighter. 

 

-/

 

She drops him at her apartment with instructions to change and get comfortable. When she returns half an hour later with two bags, he's leaning over his tablet and frowning.

 

“What?” She asks him, depositing the bags on the table. He hasn't ditched any of his armor, and she's pretty sure he hasn't asked his ghost to, either. She is hovering near him, looking concerned.

 

He scoffs. “Strike rotation. I'll have to pull double duty tomorrow. Ikora won’t be in a place to-”

 

“Actually,” She opens the bags and sets a generously filled container of rice and chicken in front of him. They won’t be discussing Ikora tonight. Or Vanguard affairs if she can help it. “I have strike duty tomorrow. And today's went just fine. It was taken care of. Eat.”

 

“Why?”

 

She shrugs, opening her own container with falafel and pita inside. “Doing my part. I need to learn more about Vex and Hive, so I might need to raid your library in the next couple days.”

 

He nods, and she can see him swallow the lump in his throat. “Feel free.”

 

They eat in relative silence after that, and she doesn't comment on how little he's actually eating. He's practically catatonic by the time she finishes what she can manage - not nearly as much as usual, but she misses that reckless goofball, too.

 

She slips the container out from in front of him when he's set his fork down and braces his elbows on the table, hands clasped together, and seems to be seeing things she can't. She can see it in the agitated pulse-flicker of lights under his skin and the tick of his jaw.

 

She sets to unclasping the large pauldron on on his right shoulder, and he doesn't react until she's removed both and set to unhooking the straps that keep the plating over his chest in place. His fingers cover hers. 

 

“I've got it.”

 

He actually doesn’t, because it’s his Ghost who appears without summon and whisks his armor away like magic. Suraya nods to her from where she stands behind him. The Ghost bobs in kind, before disappearing in a shower of light and sparks. She is a sweet and quiet companion - not that Zavala would be able to tolerate otherwise. She and Suraya have a tentative understanding made up of body language cues and gestures, never allowing the man they protect to know of their joint effort to protect his well being. It’s enough.

 

Suraya leans down to nuzzle his cheek with hers. It is almost too sweet to handle. He trembles. She ignores that he does. “I'm going to shower,” She whispers against his ear. “Join me.”

 

She’s got her poncho thrown over the side of a chair and the composite boning of her chest piece undone before he so much as moves from his position. She shimmies out of her pants and that’s what gets his attention. His familiar under-armor attire join hers in the kitchen - they’ll worry about it later - and he follows her into the moderately sized bathroom. 

 

Setting the shower to somewhere just shy of blistering hot, she motions for him to step in. Unlike their usual jaunts, she does not appraise him from head to toe, she simply turns toward the sink, using the fogging mirror to look at herself as she removes the tie that holds her hair in place. Her fingers comb through the thick braid. Rather than hitting the mid-point of her back, the freed strands come to just above the small of it. 

 

When she steps into the stall that is just big enough to accomodate the both of them, his wet fingers cup her face and pull her in for a searing kiss. She looks up at him, but his eyes are closed, and his hands are still trembling. She wasn’t trying to make this sexual. She was literally just going to wash him down, rub his shoulders, and hope he’d allow her to hold onto him through the night. But if this was what he needs, she supposes she can make it happen, too.

 

He comes onto her with the force of a hurricane, hands touching, teeth,lips, and tongue laving whatever skin he can get to. He starts at her jaw and works down her neck like a man possessed, intent and focused. When she tries to reciprocate, he moves her hand to the apex of her thighs, guiding it over the swollen nub there. She can’t help but buck her hips into their combined effort

 

“Please,” He says softly, sad blue eyes alight with hunger. He sinks to his knees before her, looking up into her eyes as rivulets of water cascade down him. “I need to see you.”

 

And damn him, if it isn’t the hottest fucking thing she’s seen all day. 

 

She’s not sure how many times he’s made her come undone, by the time the water runs cold and they exit the bathing quarters. She barely remembers washing her hair - or trying to, it all ran together after he’d had her riding three of his fingers. He was trying to relax her, to let her sleep.

 

Magnanimous bastard. Did he think she doesn’t know this game? Take care of everyone, because it will make you feel better, neglect yourself because you think you deserve it. They grieve the same exact way, and he’s absolutely got another thing coming if he thinks she isn’t about to return the favor, so to speak.

 

Once they’re relatively dried off, she leads him to her bedroom. It’s mostly maps and clothing - a true Hunter’s paradise - but his books and a basket of yarn and crochet hooks sit on one side of the bed. His side - not that they’ve ever taken care to define anything between them. 

 

He reaches for a pair of cloth sleep-shorts, but she takes them from him, her eyes darkening on him in the same way his had to her earlier.

 

“Suraya,” He gasps as she reaches for his length with one hand while the other backs him up gently, until the back of his knees hit the bed. “You don’t-”

 

She motions for him to lay back, and he does, eyes wide as he looks up at her. She’s not forward. Not that she’s uncomfortable in her sexuality - or at least as uncomfortable with it as she was when they’d started whatever this was - but this was new to him. She was always willing participant, but he usually instigated and took point on their more arduous encounters. He’s always gotten off on getting others off, so one-sided encounters never bothered him.

 

But, now…

 

Never have they been intimate like this. She straddles him of her own accord, reaching behind her to line him up - his length straining at the possibilities awaiting them. 

 

“Let me see you,” She echoes back to him, sinking down slowly. Around them, her hair falls like a curtain, shielding them from the world outside as she slowly sheathes him to the hilt.

 

It’s enough to make his back arch and a very undignified sound escape him. She moves slowly, knowing that it won’t take much to push him over the edge in this position, her hips rising and falling like waves of the ocean, fingers running down either side of his face until her right hand rests over his heart, and her left cups his jaw. He forces his eyes shut and breathes deep as she rocks him over and over, until she uses the muscles deep inside her to squeeze his length in such away that he’s forced to look at her: warm amber eyes, raven black hair, and the slightest twinge of a smile on her lips.

 

His left hand comes to rest over hers against his heart in lieu of twisting the sheets in its grip. He squeezes it. She nods. She thinks perhaps she’s always known. Leaning low over him, her lips just shy of his ear, her nose nudges his temple. “Let go, Love,” She whispers. “I’ve got you.”

 

She’s never used pet names before, always as serious in the sheets as she is when it comes to work. His chest feels warm at her choice, at what it means. His hips rise to meet hers in slow, sweeping drags of skin against skin. He mewls as she tightens the muscles sheathing him in warm, wet heat with every thrust and she murmurs encouragements to him - a role reversal that’s been a long time coming. When his release is upon him, it’s with a stutter of hips and a whimper of her name, and he holds her tight against him as he falls off the edge. Her hips rock against him gently, coaxing the last drops of his seed from him whilst he moans at the sensitivity. 

 

When she lifts herself off him, it’s only to clean up the residue of their lovemaking - and this is truly, truly lovemaking: not the red-hot passion of two individuals who give everything to work and need stress relief. She wipes the slick from him with gentle fingers and a warm cloth, throwing it into a hamper in the corner as she slides into the other side of the bed. 

 

She turns toward him, resting a fist over her heart. “If could shoulder your burdens,” She whispers, while his eyes flutter. The sheer force of his orgasm - both raw and emotional - is dragging him down into the undertow of sleep, and he’s too far gone. “I would take them all in a heartbeat.”

 

She presses her fingers against his forehead, smoothing out the few worry lines that remain. And he sleeps.

 

Suraya knows the next weeks, months, years will be difficult. But here, here she can give him comfort. He is a stoic, steadfast leader. If no one else is looking out for them (and even if they are, she realizes), she absolutely will. Gladly.

 

She pulls the blankets up over him, dims the lights just low enough for her to see, and reaches for the book on her nightstand. She still has a lot to learn, and Cayde isn’t around to give her unapologetic cliffnotes on the Faction Wars. She pulls her legs up to her knees, props the book up on them, and opens to where she left off. 

 

She didn’t think she was going to miss him as much as he does, and she certainly isn’t about to admit it to anyone - except maybe Louis. But it’s okay. Others hurt more than she does. She’ll carry on.


End file.
